Isaac wasn’t worried about failing the second test. He had a memory for faces and people of all types and kinds. He was slightly more worried about Sophia, but seeing her confidently hand in her notes he knew that his worries were misplaced. Andri on the other hand…
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“You shouldn’t ask people where they want to be stabbed the least. As a first question, it's a bit confrontational.”
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“I‘m convenient?”
<
“Why do I feel so insulted then? Is that all we are, me and Sophia? Convenient friends?”
Andri just gave him a look.
<
“So you could if you wanted to.” Honestly, he thought that Andri had warmed up at least a little but, but this just showed how little he understood him. “What about Tom and Chessica?”
<
<
A bloop appeared on his Brick and on Andri’s scanner. Apparently Isaac had won third place, netting him five extra points. Andri meanwhile seemed glad that he didn’t need more than half of the total amount of correct descriptors given to pass. Hrisp’s group had flunked out and while Hrisp would have passed, he chose to stay with the team and voluntarily conceded.
“You could do with opening up a little,” Isaac said, but Andri’s focus was already somewhere else, as if he’d forgotten about the conversation entirely.
Alright then. Snack privileges — revoked.
“Attention,” came the voice of Miss Miff. “All who have succeeded in their tests, after me. We will begin the hike to the blimp, then fly the rest of the way to testing area number three, which will be held in three days' time. Rest, recuperate, train some teamwork. This is the midpoint, so for any of you who are thinking of only going halfway, it’s only one more test.”
Oh thank Maerdon, was Isaac’s first thought. I feel like I could do a few more. It just started getting fun.
He did a double take at himself. The adventurer exam, fun? If running around Wett-city, then running a marathon down a tunnel while getting beat up, then bumbling around the forest while getting wet, dirty, and beat up by murderous rabbits was starting to count as fun in Isaac’s book, then what would it take for him to consider dropping out?
Probably if he could buy something with his points to pay for Zach’s new arm.
Then again, if he did become an adventurer, he could pay for all kinds of things. Claire had a magazine full of circled giant plushies, Hammond always complained about how hard it was to get a good speedboat for a reasonable price, and the little ones had a never ending stream of birthday wishes he could finally contribute towards.
If I had infinite money, I could give them so much. And besides, I kind of want to see how far I can go.
+++
Blimps were some of the most ubiquitous modes of transport on Wett because it was a safe, tried and tested technology, and because most of the monsters were stuck under water. Boats could still cross the seas in many locations, but the image of being on an empty vessel while some creature the size of an island decided to make you their next snack really gave people incentive to invest in alternative modes of transport.
Now all Isaac had to worry about was falling from a kilometer up in the sky and turning into red paste. He had never flown in a blimp before. He was pretty sure it would be quite painless compared to drowning, the flying, and the potential horrific death in case of a crash.
And yet…
When they had arrived at the landing spot, the first thing Isaac had thought was ‘oh, that’s not a small blimp’. Then again, he didn’t have much experience, and he’d never flown before. A movie he’d watched as a kid had featured a sort of secret-agent flick where the main character had to navigate his way through some sort of fancy gala or other event onboard his nemesis’ private airship. That was the extent of his exposure, and ever since he’d thought that private airships were all about rich people stuff the same way luxury yachts were.
But now he was here, and this was an adventurer blimp, capital A. It had a cafeteria and a gym, sleeping quarters for the roughly 150 souls left on the exam and a panorama deck with a bar. Not a room, not a bar with a fancy little floor window. The entire lower deck had a see-through floor and by the way some people clung to the walls — also made of glass — they were enjoying a rather visceral experience.
“Ugh,” Isaac groaned as trees turned to toothpicks beneath the rising blimp. “Please tell me we have parachutes on board.”
<
Andri didn’t even look up from where he was studying the fire exits, which implied that airships like this caught fire regularly enough. He was more than glad to learn that they were right next to the parachute storage areas. It was almost the best thing about this entire ship.
“It can’t be harder than using a swim vest.” He felt only marginally better when he imagined how long it would take before he hit the ground. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
<
“I’m not going to—” He looked down again and saw that the swimming pool was now barely as large as his hand. Something about that comparison really drove home how far up they were. And if he really listened, he could hear the howling of wind whooshing past the outside, and feel the airship being ever so slightly moved by it. “Bag. Now.”
Sophia already had one ready before he even asked. She patted him on the back while Isaac went along with whatever his body thought it was doing.
“Get some rest Isaac. We probably all need it.”
+++
It took a day, and the better part of the next, but Isaac got somewhat used to being on a flying airship. He was avoiding the lowest floor, which really sucked since once people had wound down, that was where all the talking and the carousing had happened. He wanted to talk to people and ask so many things.
Like, what did mister mana slash mean when he said that the merpeople’s gods were fake? Did he know what that meant, was ‘fake’ used differently aboard adventurer ships? Actually, that implied that there were real gods, which he realized could also mean something entirely different than what he was expecting.
They can’t all be all-powerful, capricious fish-beings that eat the impious.
Asking Hrisp seemed… moderately more rude than he was comfortable with. But he wanted to ask so badly, and besides that it was hard finding specific people walking through the halls outside of when the cafeteria opened for all the breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. And then, everyone preferred to sit in their clandestine groups, and eat, not talk to a stranger who may well have poor intentions.
Not that he wouldn’t take a leg up over the competition. But it was disappointing to realize how even after the big potluck, people so quickly turned to their old habits.
I shouldn’t judge them. Here I am, walking around all alone so nobody has to see me feel bad about me.
A cloud shaped like a pile of muffins wandered by outside a window to his left. Most clouds looked like that, but this one had a sprinkle on top, a single gray-blue glider playing with unseen winds as it reached higher and higher. Isaac watched it clear the cloud, then slowly sink down behind it in lazy corkscrews.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“It’s been following us for a while now.”
He turned around, and saw a friendly old-man’s face peeking out of a familiar stall.
“Hartwig?” he asked, squinting as he walked over to the old man sitting snug like a bug in bark. “No. You’re not grumpy enough to be him or Torwig either.”
“Sharp eye. Ludwig’s the name, young’un. Now, how can I help?” The mannequin’s serene, grandfatherly smile was so open and inviting Isaac didn’t quite know what to say for a moment.
“Is the glider going to be a problem?”
Ludwig waived those worries away with a single hand. “Ach, there are always going to be flies whirring about. The exams attract all kinds, from reporters and peeping Tom’s to opportunists, hobbyists, and other enthusiasts. Leave the worrying to the big wigs, it’s not worth being bothered about for you.”
The implication being that someone with a lot more power was busy worrying themselves. This did not inspire confidence, and the more Isaac thought, the less sure he seemed about everything. He slumped on the countertop with a sigh.
“Do you offer career guidance and counseling?”
“We do.”
“How much?”
“They’re usually free.”
He thought back how Torwig had weaseled three months of walking his superpowered terrier for the same sort of service. “Son of a… ugh.”
“Take your time,” Ludwig said with a chuckle. “As you can see I’m going nowhere.”
Because you’re on the clock, or because you’ve got nowhere else to go?
If living in a box barely large enough to stretch was uncomfortable, Ludwig didn’t show it. Isaac had the entire airship to explore, and yet he was feeling more confined by a long shot.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he finally started. “It’s all just been a long line of coincidences and helping hands along the way.”
“Maybe that is the way of life? Helping and being helped.”
“I led five of us in the hunt and we failed. We were tripping over each other and getting in each other’s way like toddlers. Then we barely succeeded on the retrial, but it wasn’t any better.” If anything, the forced teamwork had soured the prospect of cooperation for some. “I… I have a brother. He’s why I’m here. Him and my sister, we’re close, so close we can almost hear each other's thoughts. I thought it would the same with others, at least in part.”
I’m afraid of water. I’m afraid of flying. We’re on a blimp, and the next exam is explicitly about competitive delving, and guess what? I’m afraid of rifts too. Zach isn’t. He would have done better, even if it cost him.”
Ludwig gave him a grandfatherly smile. “You are a kind soul, Isaac. You think of others as few would think of you. It hurts you seeing them hurt. Selflessness is a trait more people ought to aspire to.”
And yet his bane was as self-centered as one could get. It wanted him to be up and close in the face of trouble, it wanted him to be the frontline holding the tide back, it wanted him to be the hero, and no one else.
“I need the ticket out after the halfway point, so I can get a job, make some money, and pay everyone back for all the times I was an idiot. I need to do that. But I want to prove I can do better. Am I being selfish?” He groaned. “I don’t know why I’m taking the exam anymore.”
There was a long silence as Ludwig let the question linger. Eventually, he rummaged around in the back of his Kiosk. Isaac looked up with one eye. It was probably not the right time or place to dump all this baggage on the next best stranger. He needed to spend his points, buy some gear that would help him in the next test, and that would sell well afterwards.
As Isaac was pondering whether a good weapon or a potion would sell for more, Ludwig turned back around, a large certificate in hand.
“This is the halfway ticket, the one you’re looking for. ‘By the authority of the society of adventurers associate, they who carry this have proven through modesty and self-reflection as much quality as through action and excelling initiative.’” Isaac’s breath hitched. “It will become available for purchase after the next test for the modest price of ten points. You can buy them at any of our subsidiaries, even outside of the exam. Do you see where I am going with this?”
“I can try for the full exam, and still get it?”
“Ping-pong. Or do you say Bingo on this world?”
“Bingo.” All this time, he’d thought that he’d have to quit to get the ticket. It was a massive relief to know otherwise. “Say, if you don’t mind me asking, where are you from?”
“I’m from nowhere in particular, and if I had to say who made me, I couldn’t tell you.” He shrugged, as if not knowing who or what your parents were was worth just that. A shrug. “I was made for one purpose. And when I attained sapience after sentience, my love for it only deepened. It is rare that we find ourselves reaching this far up that ladder in one lifetime, but I hear it is rare for people who are born without a purpose to find a truly fitting one, no?”
“Huh.” Isaac had never seen it that way, but he supposed it was true. No matter whether you were born from a womb, spawned from an egg, or were made in a mad doctor’s lab, everyone had struggles, and everyone struggled differently.
“Now, you are right to fear rifts. They are dangerous if you go alone. Can I interest you in some choice wares? You need to win the next test to even consider going further.” He grinned and Isaac couldn’t help but grin back a bit. “I think I have just the combo for someone with your profile.”
+++
The girl was following Andri around, and he did not like it. It made the strip of fur on his neck stand on end. Why was she doing this, he didn’t need so much attention, didn’t want it.
He stared at her for a long time as she laughed at some retort he’d made and promptly forgotten about.
The girl was an enigma. And Andri couldn’t even start to imagine how he was supposed to approach her in any way, because he had forgotten her name.
Was it Sarah? Shelby? Sadie?
The answer was lost among her soft features, her melodic giggles that were neither too loud nor too quiet, and her weird, cabbage-shaped hair mop, with strands going off every way. The kit inside him wanted to swat them, tug at them, play until his heart said it didn’t want to play no more. And there he went, forgetting what the conversation was about again.
Ugh.
Hopefully this would get better at higher tiers.
It wasn’t a lie that Mink — who people insisted on calling ‘Catpeople’ when they had more features in common with the average stoat — were by and large not a sociable race. They had been lifted up at around the same time as humans and canids were plucked from their rifts by the great elder race, and societies had gotten all confused and mixed up over the millennia due to simple proximity.
He could see it, feel it happening to him right now. She smelled of strawberry today, and lime yesterday. Why did she change her smell like it was some old hat? You didn’t do that, not unless you were trying to make an important point. But she wasn’t making a point, she was just there, constantly, and she wanted him to know it, hoping that he wouldn’t get used to her shenanigans.
Jokes on her, he already was.
He stretched himself from head to toe, making sure to signal through it that he was done here and that he was going to leave. He stood up, walked away, felt her belated steps following him like an echo before a sudden tug at his arm caught his attention.
So touchy.
Uuugh.
“Hey, Isaac’s over there. And so’s the rest.”
Uuuuuuuugh.
She was already dragging him to the table, and as much as he wanted to go limp like a wet towel and let her feel his displeasure as she dragged him, that was a kit-thing, something only children did. And Andri was not a child, he was not dependent, he was on his road to becoming someone.
He sat at the table, making sure to always have the mimic in his line of sight. He stared at it, trying to find where it’s eyes were, where it’s face and soft weakspots were hidden, but he found none. The perfect predator. He was pretty sure no one could read mimics, even Isaac, the terminally perceptive.
Isaac had a rather small chestplate, and new gloves though. Interesting.
Andri helped himself to a nearby bowl of complimentary nuts as he tuned in to the second half of the conversation.
“... we can go to the gym where they’ve even got private rooms, and show off our abilities a bit. Make sure everyone knows what everyone can do.”
Isaac was clearly going to keep this impromptu team stuck together if all he had was shoelaces and the gum he still hadn’t noticed was sticking to his sole.
<
Isaac was all serious, but more than serious he seemed excited. The fool. “We aren’t going to become a great team, I know. But let me do this and I promise, our efficiency will shoot through the roof.”
<
For people like him, information was king, and keeping secrets kept his throat in one piece.
Isaac shrugged. “Secrets are secrets. Everyone has them, and I’m not forcing you to share what you’re not comfortable with. I just want to up our chances since rifting is not exactly a solo endeavor for most people.”
“I for one want to win.” With one hand placed on the table, he looked to the rest. “Who’s with me?”
“Me,” said the girl, adding hers. “Obviously.”
Then came the big minotaur’s big hand. “Tom has realized he is still inadequate as a warrior, and hopes to grow alongside four wise friends.”
Wiser than the book you’re lugging around.
“And I’ve never seen a dungeon from the inside,” said a slithering voice, as the mimic added her disgusting, wretched, horrible pink tongue on the pile. “I bet it’ll feel juuust like home.”
A shiver ran down Andri’s spine. People were so… agreeable, despite the debacle in the forest, despite a complete lack of evidence, let alone confidence. Most people couldn’t run a rift by themselves, yes, but Andri could. He would just have to take it slowly and carefully, the same way he had to cushion his denial in so many annoying words.
Compliments signaled agreeableness and were good conversation starters as much as they could be used to soften hard blows. He’d read that in a book once, and Isaac was living proof with how he distributed them like candy.
<
Isaac grinned. “Thanks. They’re red.”
Andri squinted his squintiest squint.
<>
“A bit of both?” said the Riddleman, who loved his riddles, and his smiles, and so much unearned confidence. God, he could smell the confidence wafting off of him. “So, what say you, you in?”
He looked at Isaac and turned away, only to come face to face with Sophia — that was her name! She looked at him with those big hazel eyes. He tried to look away, he tried not to feel anything.
<
He put his hand on the mimic’s tongue.
Yep. It was as slimy as it looked.